I swap the sword at my throat for a butterfly pendant.
I shimmer salted vanilla scented. I swish baking soda
dissolved in a cup of cold water but do not taste it.
I paint my nails silver with white glitter, layer polish
until my claws are strong and nearly unbreakable.
My spine rises sharp and untouchable, hackles up,
I grin and it’s harmful. Dowse myself in lavender at night,
restless, arms contorted out of socket like a broken doll’s.
I forget to take photos of my face. I won’t be eighteen forever.
I breathe hot in the sunlight. My mother says my skin
is so smooth as she works out the knots in my back,
but all bone, she says, all bone. I want to be sharper.
I want to be something the mosquitos don’t have a taste for.
Bloodless beauty. Tame mostly, like an aquarium shark 
making little circles in a tank too small, so numb, so cool.
I sit in the living room. My parents tried hard for this baby.
The baby is grown. She is a bit less innocent now.
Let the graduation card fall to the ground, take the money.
I pretend I can’t read the cursive note so I don’t have to.
It’s addressed to the baby, what she would’ve become
in a different timeline. No one knows who they’re writing to
when they mail those prewritten cards. I laugh hollowly.
I’ve been missing for a long time. I want to vanish fully.
I want to walk into the sundown and let my body dissolve,
all flesh and spectacle becomes smoke and fog and air.
I ponder my escape, but I make no movement towards it.
I do the little things I can that give me the illusion I am:
coat my teeth with fluoride, fill the garden with delphinium,
go get labs drawn but lie to the nurse taking my weight.
It’s like going out walking in a dream. I journey for miles, 
but slowly all becomes familiar, I learn with great effort
that I have been tracing the same circles back to the start.
I am placated by the ritual of it, this tight endless spiral.
I barely notice the fake coral, the artificial light rippling
so lovely above me, the glass box so finite, so cramped.